


Hard-Won Happiness

by Inbredipus



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games), Rune Factory 2: A Fantasy Harvest Moon
Genre: F/F, I refuse to believe that this isn't canon, Implied Doug/Dylas, Implied Mpreg, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 08:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inbredipus/pseuds/Inbredipus
Summary: Rune Factory is one of my favorite video game series, and Rune Factory 2 was my first Rune Factory game (I married Alicia the first time around). From the beginning I looked at these two and was like "well isn't that a bit gay" and over time I just sort of created this weirdly complex storyline to justify it being canon.





	Hard-Won Happiness

Barrett had known since Kyle first spoke to him.

The guy was loud, and ridiculous (not that it was weird in this town), and often incomprehensibly kind. And Barrett, the mayor’s son, was in love with him.

It pissed him off.

Barrett was a man in control, and the threads of it slipped through his fingers just from being around Kyle. Instead of getting better over time, his infatuation only grew worse, and worse.

—

Once, he told Dorothy in what they would both later call “an emotional breakdown,” though it would take Barrett a few years to admit it, after he’d seen Kyle flirting with Mana. She’d been stunned silent - though she always seemed that way, even when the guy she was supposed to marry wasn’t declaring that he was in love with a guy - for a moment, then had given Barrett a sad smile that reminded him of why he liked her.

“…It, it’s…” Dorothy’s voice stumbled over itself, but the hand on Barrett’s shoulder, small and pale, got the meaning across.

“It’s not going to ‘be okay,’ and you know it,” Barrett snapped, then regretted it. He sighed, resigned. “Sorry.”

Dorothy only nodded.

—

Even though he never admitted it to anyone else, the reason Barrett cried at Kyle’s wedding had more to do with grief than joy. He sat in one of the pews, next to Dorothy, and wept silently, steadily; she rubbed a hand on the small of his back, and for once, he was glad for the comfort.

For a second, while Kyle was walking down the aisle, he thought that they made eye contact. He thought that Kyle looked wistful.

Barrett wished his heart would just give up on torturing him, already.

—

He married Dorothy. She didn’t seem to mind that he was in love with someone else, said she was the same.

Bryon smiled throughout the wedding, happy his wild son was finally settling down.

Kyle sat in the back, Mana at his side. His eyes were ringed with red, and Mana had her arm around him, protectively holding her husband. Even though Kyle’s eyes were trained on the floor, Mana’s were not; she glared openly whenever she and Barrett made eye contact.

Barrett wondered if she knew. She probably did, had probably seen the shameful display that Barrett had put on at Kyle’s wedding, had seen the way Barrett looked at Kyle, had seen beneath Barrett’s mask. All at once, the weight of his façade settled over his shoulders, and he cried into Dorothy’s arms after the wedding ended, his body too tired to keep up the fight.

Dorothy cried as well, silently, and with this they were forever comrades. Not lovers, that would likely only apply in the minds of others; simply comrades.

—

Dorothy was luckier; Yue, for all her money-grubbing ways, was also a kind, clever woman, and she doted on Dorothy whenever she was in town. Barrett was bitterly jealous, and it drained him.

—

Barrett stopped crying over Kyle when he found out that Dorothy was pregnant.

He settled into his role as ‘husband’ and ‘father’ with discomforting ease. He hadn’t questioned the child, simply knew that Yue had brought back something from a faraway town during her last visit, and that Dorothy was now pregnant. It wasn’t his, but he would play that role well.

—

Mana and Kyle’s child was likely going to be beautiful, and, even though Barrett wanted to hate them simply because of what the child represented - everything he couldn’t have - he simply couldn’t.

He offered to be a teacher at Kyle’s new school with a heartbroken smile, and was, for once, glad that Kyle was so oblivious to his affections.

—

Lionel had Yue’s personality, and Dorothy’s smile. Nobody else saw it but them, but Barrett heard whispers about how he didn’t look like the child.

He silenced people with the glare he had perfected over years of heartache.

—

Aria was bright, and called him by his first name, and Barrett cared for her like a daughter.

At the same time, he hoped that she never picked up on his affections for her father.

—

When Kyle disappeared, Barrett searched everywhere. He didn’t come home for days at a time.

But Kyle was gone, and whatever bit of Barrett’s heart was still beating finally fell silent.

—

Aria started up her own search when she was old enough, and Barrett helped without realizing he had meant to.

The areas outside of town were dangerous, especially for a child, but Aria held her own the same way her father had. She carried his spark well.

All Barrett could do was give advice, and translate. He was too old to search on his own, now, had long left those reckless days behind him, yet, whenever Aria came back with the next clue, his legs itched to run and join her.

—

Kyle was something special, Barrett had known that from the start.

But, holding one of the dragons down with nothing but his will? Even Barrett had to sputter at that.

—

Mana came to him after class one day, as the sky was beginning to turn the color of darkness that only fell with spring. Barrett never became friendly with her, couldn’t bear it; she looked at him with piercing eyes, her kind smile hiding the fact that she knew the depths of his depravity.

Her smile was forced when she said that Kyle had asked to see him.

Barrett couldn’t bring himself to care.

—

“How long?” Barrett asked, breathless.

Kyle stood sheepishly at his kitchen table, rubbed the back of his neck, looked everywhere but Barrett’s face. “Since the beginning?”

Part of Barrett wanted to rage at that, because all of this heartache could have been avoided had one of them just said something, but he knew that feeling was unfair. Kyle was held to the same standards he was. So, instead, he asked why Kyle mentioned it at all.

Apparently, Aria had inherited Mana’s perception skills.

—

“What about Dorothy?” Kyle asked, one day, while they were sitting on the pier.

“Lionel isn’t mine,” Barrett said, as if that was enough explanation. At Kyle’s raised eyebrow, he added: “Yue found a spell from a far-off town.”

“Do you think she could find another?” Kyle’s smile was at once both concerning and warming.

—

Nobody questioned Yuri; Barrett simply went on a business trip for a year, and came back with a child. Said he’d found her, that she was abandoned, and everyone praised his unexpected selflessness.

Nobody noticed that Yuri’s hair was a warm orange, just like nobody noticed the scowling turn of her mouth.

—

Happiness was still hard-won, but the fact that Barrett had won it at all was enough for him.

—

Once, while visiting Selphia, Barrett came across two young men fighting.

One had red hair and a quick temper; the other had horse’s ears - what was with this town? - and glaring eyes. Barrett saw his past play out before him.

He talked to the horse-boy, Dylas, alone once, told him the truth.

“If you two don’t admit your feelings, you’ll be deeply and truly hurt.”

Dylas had balked, glared, nearly growled, before simply blushing and nodding. Barrett could see what had drawn the other man to him.

The two were fighting again the next time he saw them, but the fight was softer now.

Barrett smiled, and kept walking. He had a family waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Rune Factory is one of my favorite video game series, and Rune Factory 2 was my first Rune Factory game (I married Alicia the first time around). From the beginning I looked at these two and was like "well isn't that a bit gay" and over time I just sort of created this weirdly complex storyline to justify it being canon.


End file.
